The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-10-04
AN IRISH FUNERAL
A johnson County Sightseer Tells
What He Saw Of it.
/. A. Young in warrensburg Standard

J. A. Young in warensburg Standard.
As | was walking out one evening
| met hearse, and behind it a pine
coffin stained yellow and ornamented
with profusion of brass fixtures,
including eight handles. The coffin
was borne on the shoulders of four
men, who were changed every few
rods by couple of bystanders who
would walk up, put their shoulders
under the foot of the coffin allowing
the former bearer to drop back and
take the place of those who carried
head. As the bearers were generally
of different heights, the ceff1n seldom
was level. but tipped and swsyed,
closely followed by a crowd that al
most filled the street and constantly
increased, consisting of all conditions
of people. The mourners-male-
walked behind the coffin and then
came the crowd, old men and boyss
women, old and young, sometime.
bareheaded and not infrequently bare
footed, and again knot of old women
in long mantles and white caps. /
noticed very short old woman, about
as high as a table, shuffiing along,
who, catching my eye, stopped and
remarking, II am the little woman
of Galway" dunned me for a penny,
got it, and answered all the questions
| chose to ask, which were very few.
She was near seventy, was three feet
high, and had never married, was
healthy; and dropping another penny,
which earned me sundry blessings,
! hurried on after the procession,
caught up, and was so fortunate as to
get beside a talkative native who told
me the fashion was to have out the
hearse at cost of 80 shillings, or
about $3.50, but carry the corpse the
whole distance on mems shoulders,
in this case over a quarter of a mile.
Soon after reaching the cemetery a
series of agonizing shouts and wells
broke forth, and / soon learned that
these came from parties who had scat
tered through the graveyard and were
probably mourning at the graves OF
departed relatives, the whole, as it
was now nearly dark, making wierd
kind of confusion. The coffin was
placed in kind of a tomb under a
large fiat stone, on which many stood,
as well as on all other similar tombs
near by. All sorts of necessary di.
recto rs were shouted cut. One who
seemed to be chief mourner tried to
attract attention by saying repeatedly:
Listen to ME, and being apparently
listened to at last, said Put the little
coffin an the big one, and never mind
the flowers" 1t was done somehow,
at last the priest shook his drum sticks,
or whatever the sticks are called, and
the crowd dispersed very rapidly, and
on the way home | encountered a jam
which was coolly surveyed by the po-
lice who, to my inquiry, answered
that two women had a fight and one
got cut and was being attended to in
a drug store.
The police are physically very fine
body of men, generally young, often
six feet or over. One that | have
seen was six feet, six inches, and he
stated that there was one who was two
and three-quarter inches taller than
he was. They carry sheathed sword
bayonet and on the belt in front is a
leather pouch which holds a pair of
handouts. They are lodged in bar
racks, where their guns are stored-a
short breech loader, and get about
thirty shillings week.
Soldiers are plenty ia every town
from the ordinary red coat to the bare
kneed Highlander.
have seen other funerals here, but
none carried on like that one in Gal
way. To-day saw coffin borne
along in hearse, which had neither
side or rear enclosure, the top support
ed by corner posts, and not even glass
to obstruct a full view.-Dublin Sept.